Mobile phones to create marvels:

M- Marketing, future of Ad industry

Shirajiv SIRIMANE

The local media industry continued growth and last year the turn over exceeded Rs. 10 billion. The bulk of the revenue was for the electronic media, a tend that was evident in the last five years.

Speaking to the Daily News Business, President of the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM) Sarath Fernando said that this growth momentum would increase and there are avenues for new players to enter the market.

“I have been promoting the concept of introducing advertising to rural areas and hosted several events last year,” he said.

He said that the future of the advertising industry would be through mobile phones. “This global trend is now developing up in Sri Lanka as well,” he said. Short Messaging System (SMS), which is already popular in the country would play a major role in this area.

Mobile phone technology is developed to an extent, that passes by of a hotel are made aware of this special offers of that particular hotel. Sri Lanka was the first to introduce GSM, 3G and many other technologies for ahead of other countries in the region.

“The advanced local mobile technology would be the key to the success of the future marketing,” he said. He also said that the earnings of the staff too have increased. Over 5,000 are directly involved in the industry where there are over 100 ad agencies including small timers.

In furtherance mobile phones will develop in the future to execute the services of a television enabling the advertisers to publicise advertisements. The services will be branded as ‘M Marketing’.

However, he admitted that the SLIM and most of the other bodies are toothless when it comes to maintaining ethics and quality of advertisements. He confessed that they have not sent a single letter nor even spoken to a single ad agency that has produced an unethical ad.

“This is something that the Media Ministry should do. We have also written to the Ministry but no action had been taken,” he said.